與他假扇 The Fan She Gave Was False
大聖又假意搥胸道：「可惜，可惜。夫人錯了，怎麼就把這寶貝與那猢猻？惱殺我也。」羅剎笑道：「大王息怒。與他的是假扇，但哄他去了。」大聖問：「真扇在於何處？」羅剎道：「放心，放心，我收著哩。」大圣又假意搥胸道：「可惜，可惜。夫人错了，怎么就把这宝贝与那猢狲？恼杀我也。」罗刹笑道：「大王息怒。与他的是假扇，但哄他去了。」大圣问：「真扇在于何处？」罗刹道：「放心，放心，我收着哩。」
逐句解 Line by line
The Great Sage again beat his breast in pretence and said, "What a pity, what a pity!"
假意 labels the performance, exactly as 故意發怒 did three passages earlier. The doubling of 可惜 is the vernacular intensifier: what a pity, what a pity.
"Madam, you were wrong. How could you give that treasure to the ape? It vexes me to death!"
殺 here is the vernacular intensive tacked onto a verb — vexed to death — not a literal killing. The same construction runs through the whole chapter as a marker of impotent rage.
The Rākṣasī said with a laugh, "Let my lord's anger rest. What I gave him was a false fan; I merely tricked him into going."
Her laugh is the first easy note she has struck in the scene, and it is produced by the one disclosure that ruins her.
The Great Sage asked, "And where is the true fan?"
The question the entire imposture exists to ask, put flatly, one line after he has been told the first fan was a forgery.
The Rākṣasī said, "Rest easy, rest easy — I have it put away."
收著 takes the continuous zhe, and 哩 is held at the toneless li by standing house rule. She answers the question of where it is by declining to say — the last piece of caution she will exercise.
The reversal here is the most efficient in the chapter. At the close of the previous chapter the Great Sage was congratulating himself on a fan he had extorted at the cost of a night spent inside his opponent's body; the room and the Great Sage in it now learn together that it was a counterfeit. The information reaches him because he scolded her for parting with the real one, and she defended herself by explaining that she had not.
Her laugh is precisely placed. She has been weeping, reproaching and confessing for three passages; the one moment she is pleased with herself is the moment she gives away the only fact she needed to keep. The novel does not moralise about it, but the sequence — anxiety, scolding, relief, disclosure — is an exact little study of how a secret actually gets lost.
What she still withholds is where the fan is, and 我收著哩 is a refusal dressed up as reassurance. It is the last defence she has, and the passages that follow will show it dissolving in wine rather than in argument.